Thematic Exploration Of Humboldt's Gift From The Perspective Of Jewish Culture

As a Jewish-American writer, Saul Bellow incorporates American experience with Jewish experience simultaneously. In his literary creations, Bellow shows considerable concerns for post-WWII American Jewish immigrants, particularly the existential predicaments of Jewish intellectuals. Saul Bellow'eighth novel Humboldt's Gift, through the depiction of two American-Jewish artists'different circumstances, deeply reveals the destructive impact the materialistic world has done to the spiritual world. Taking Jewish conventional culture as its referential framework, this thesis intends to interpret and explain three literary themes reflected in Humboldt's Gift including the theme of covenant, the theme of spiritual wandering and the theme of suffering & salvation. These thematic concerns in a sense reflect Bellow's Jewish ethnic values. Deeply excavating the Jewish historic and cultural connotation, this thesis expects to lead readers to a better understanding of recessive linkage between Jewish culture and Bellow's works.